Strongman, The

have no objections to a US role in Central Asia as long as it has the object of fighting the war on terror and is temporary and is not permanent .’ 16 The last words were crucial. Ten years later (despite a Russian attempt to have them evicted in 2009), American forces still operate out of the Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan. 17 They were asked to leave their base in Uzbekistan in 2005.
    The American campaign was mainly going to involve air strikes, while the Afghans themselves (the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance) would be doing the fighting on the ground. Rice says that she and Sergei Ivanov were given responsibility for getting supplies to the Northern Alliance and preparing them to fight. Even as Putin was calling Bush from Sochi, Russia’s chief of staff, General Anatoly Kvashnin, was holding talks with a Northern Alliance leader in Tajikistan.
    Russia, it seemed, was now totally aligned with the US in the war on terror. Sergei Ivanov claims that some days after the war began, Russian border guards on the Tajik frontier with Afghanistan were approached by representatives of the Taliban. ‘They said they had authority from Mullah Omar to propose that Russia and the Taliban join forces fighting the Americans.’ Putin referred to the same incident when the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, visited Moscow. ‘We gave them only one answer,’ said Putin in English, showing a crude Russian hand-gesture, a fist with the thumb pushed between the forefinger and middle finger. ‘We do it a little differently, but I get the point,’ laughed Rumsfeld. 18
    The American assault began on 7 October. It was Putin’s birthday. Together with the guests at his party, he watched the news of the first air strikes on television. Defence minister Sergei Ivanov turned to him and raised a glass of vodka: ‘Vladimir Vladimirovich, it’s a birthday present for you.’
    The George ’n’ Vladimir show
    It seemed that Putin had now answered that journalist’s question in Ljubljana: was this a man Americans could trust? Delighted to be seen to be acting in concert with the West rather than against it, Putin now kept up the charm offensive, travelling first to Germany, where he impressed his hosts by making a speech to the Bundestag entirely in German.
    He emphasised his country’s cooperation in the war on terror, and contrasted this with the slap in the face Russia had felt over the bombing of Serbia – an event now more than two years old but still rankling. ‘Decisions are often taken without our participation, and we are only urged afterwards to support them. After that they talk again about loyalty to NATO. They even say that such decisions cannot be implemented without Russia. Let us ask ourselves: is this normal? Is this true partnership?’
    ‘We cannot have a united Great Europe without an atmosphere of trust,’ he said, laying out a grand vision to put an end finally to the Cold War. ‘Today we are obliged to say that we are renouncing our stereotypes and ambitions and from now on will jointly ensure the security of the population of Europe and the world as a whole.’
    Chancellor Gerhard Schröder fully supported Putin’s idea of involving Russia in ‘jointly’ ensuring Europe’s security. Even before this visit they had begun to think the unthinkable: that Russia might even become a member of NATO. Schröder recalled later in an interview that they had discussed what he called a ‘fairly visionary’ approach to foreign policy: ‘I had discussions with Putin about whether it would make sense for Russia to join NATO – and I thought that it made perfect sense, a good prospect for Russia and also for NATO.’ 19
    A week later Putin was in Brussels for a meeting with NATO secretary general George Robertson, ready to push his luck. Robertson was taken aback when Putin opened the meeting by asking, ‘When are you going to invite Russia to join NATO?’ 20
    Putin’s adviser Sergei Prikhodko insists it was just a ‘figure of speech’, but Robertson took it seriously. 21 He patiently explained that this wasn’t how things were done. He recalled: ‘I said, “Well, Mr President, we don’t invite people to join NATO. You apply for membership. You then have to go through a process to show that you can be integrated within NATO, and then an invitation to membership is issued.” So he sort of shrugged and said something to the effect of “Russia is not going to stand in a queue with a lot of countries that